Help with planning home network

[RacerX330]

Who even says that? Are you wearing a monocle sipping tea?



I literally quote the posts of yours which I'm replying to, it was nothing to do with the first post. You're right, most readers are intelligent enough to interpret those two most recent posts as contradicting each other. I guess not all writers are as intelligent though.

If you want every reply to be "you're right, end of story, no comment" then the internet is not the right place for you. They're called discussion forums for a reason.

Ah now it's come to ad hominem attacks. Very classy. While you may have clicked all the right buttons on the screen, the words you strung together in an attempt at interpreting what was said is deeply flawed and heavily biased.

It is an indisputable fact that I never said "just use Cat6". That line of reasoning was the basis for your question, another indisputable fact.

Honestly, who the hell are you to sh*t on my post which was simply a summarization of my personal experience when I encountered a similar situation. It is more than obvious that you are primarily interested in showing off how much you know and how smart you think you are by nitpicking things that were neither said nor implied. I personally will have none of that, and if you do it to me again in the future I will call you out on it as I have done here.

 

[drinkingbird]

Ah now it's come to ad hominem attacks. Very classy. While you may have clicked all the right buttons on the screen, the words you strung together in an attempt at interpreting what was said is deeply flawed and heavily biased.

It is an indisputable fact that I never said "just use Cat6". That line of reasoning was the basis for your question, another indisputable fact.

Honestly, who the hell are you to sh*t on my post which was simply a summarization of my personal experience when I encountered a similar situation. It is more than obvious that you are primarily interested in showing off how much you know and how smart you think you are by nitpicking things that were neither said nor implied. I personally will have none of that, and if you do it to me again in the future I will call you out on it as I have done here.

So it is ok to attack me as tiresome, nit picky, a showoff, but not for me to respond? You're all about the contradictions.

Call me out whenever you want, as if that is some sort of threat? I'm not worried about what someone on the internet says about me (heck, not worried about what people in real life say about me). It's actually entertaining seeing your heavy use of thesaurus.com. Seriously, you're accusing ME of trying to sound smart?

We each stated our opinions, I asked why you seemed to be contradicting yourself in 2 sequential posts, I guess that made you mad (and also 18th century Victorian)? It's like you're trying to find a reason to be mad and start an argument, we're just discussing cabling best practices here.

I'll leave it at that before the thread gets locked (or probably too late anyway). Arguing on the internet is a waste of.... everything.

 

[RacerX330]

So it is ok to attack me as tiresome, nit picky, a showoff, but not for me to respond? You're all about the contradictions.

Call me out whenever you want, as if that is some sort of threat? I'm not worried about what someone on the internet says about me (heck, not worried about what people in real life say about me). It's actually entertaining seeing your heavy use of thesaurus.com. Seriously, you're accusing ME of trying to sound smart?

We each stated our opinions, I asked why you seemed to be contradicting yourself in 2 sequential posts, I guess that made you mad (and also 18th century Victorian)? It's like you're trying to find a reason to be mad and start an argument, we're just discussing cabling best practices here.

I'll leave it at that before the thread gets locked (or probably too late anyway). Arguing on the internet is a waste of.... everything.

View attachment 52986

oh now YOU'RE the victim.

 

[sfx2000]

So it is ok to attack me as tiresome, nit picky, a showoff, but not for me to respond? You're all about the contradictions.

Call me out whenever you want, as if that is some sort of threat?

Can we just walk away....

@drinkingbird - even if you're right, you're wrong...

 

[tgl]

Can we just walk away....

Please. I'm not a mod here, but if I were I'd lock this thread. Relax, gentlemen.

 

[drinkingbird]

Can we just walk away....

@drinkingbird - even if you're right, you're wrong...

I walked away last night. As they say, figting on the internet is like running in the special Olympics...... Google the punchline

 

[OJay]

iiiiii'm back. So some updates.

I ended up grabbing:

1. 2x NWA210AX's https://www.amazon.de/dp/B08GY1WQ9M/
2. 1x NICGIGA 8 2.5Gb switch (with a 10Gb SFP+) https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BXSDS32C/ for connecting the various rooms to each other/the router
3. 1x VIMIN 6-Port 2.5G PoE Switch - Has 4x 2.5Gb POE+ ports and 2x 10Gb SFP+ ports https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0C5D5PSS7/ for the APs
4. other assorted things (patch panel, keystones, RJ45 jacks for the AP's etc)

Currently I have my 1Gb DOCSIS connection (moved in btw). Have not bothered changing the router. I plan to probably add my ASUS router back into the mix next week (i'm really missing diversion) at least until the 2Gb FTTP is available.

At that point I will probably grab something like the normal version of this that has 2x 10Gb SFP ports instead of 2x25Gb SFP ports

( I don't need 25Gb, also I have no clue whether the SFP ports on my switches will play nicely with 25Gb because i read something about auto negotiation issues). Or one of the low power fanless ones that STH has reviewed.

I've not decided yet whether I will use both connections or condemn the 1Gb one (but i'm leaning towards condemning the slower one just because it's simpler)

For now the layout is: router - Ethernet - NICGIGA, connected to rooms currently being used - SFP - VIMIN connected to 2x APs.

Currently have 1AP on floor 2, 1AP on floor 1. And everything else is on the ground floor.

WiFi on the ground floor in the man cave is not great at all ( 50Mb compared to 700 -1000 on other floors) unless I connect directly to the router. But I suppose this is expected because of the concrete between floors. I’m not sure whether it’s worth getting another Zyxel AP to cover this floor, feels a bit overkill but in the end I will end up with a wired router so I have to plan for this. Is there another similar zyxel AP to the NWA210AX but just for smaller spaces? And probably wall mounted because I didn’t ask for a wire in the ceiling on the ground floor, though I suppose I could just run one directly from the router or one of the switches in the garage.

On the topic of wifi, is advice like the first reply here https://community.zyxel.com/en/discussion/12829/nwa210ax-slow-performance the best advice to get a good connection and encourage devices to switch to the access point with the strongest connection to them? My phone does this but my oven for example is still connected to the 2nd floor AP for some reason (likely because that’s the one it was originally connected to).

Summary of the current plan is that as time goes on:

1. “Upgrade” router to an x86 box (isp router in bridge mode). Current plan is to pick something that makes sense that’s probably been reviewed / recommended by STH ( mainly looking for some 2.5Gb Ethernet ports and at least 2 SFP+ 10 Gb ports)
2. Find an appropriate AP solution for the ground floor man cave, realistically this and the garage are the only rooms that needs a strong connection on this floor, and they are next to each other. Would prefer to get something smaller than another NWA210AX but in the name of compatibility/uniformity I am willing to get another one.
3. Will add another NICGIGA switch as needed. Though realistically even though there are 14 or so ports through the house, I only really foresee 1-4 being in use simultaneously outside of the APs which have their own switch anyway.


Does this all sound reasonable? Is there some obvious thing i'm missing? Also……erm…..sorry for the wall of text lol.

 

[tgl]

WiFi on the ground floor in the man cave is not great at all ( 50Mb compared to 700 -1000 on other floors) unless I connect directly to the router. But I suppose this is expected because of the concrete between floors. I’m not sure whether it’s worth getting another Zyxel AP to cover this floor, feels a bit overkill but in the end I will end up with a wired router so I have to plan for this. Is there another similar zyxel AP to the NWA210AX but just for smaller spaces?

Not that I'm aware of, but you can turn down the transmit power on those things if they are covering only a small space. Turning down transmit power on your existing units might be worth experimenting with too, if you find devices connecting to the further one of the two.

And probably wall mounted because I didn’t ask for a wire in the ceiling on the ground floor, though I suppose I could just run one directly from the router or one of the switches in the garage.

The Zyxels work fine wall-mounted. I've got them oriented that way, though not actually attached to the wall.

On the topic of wifi, is advice like the first reply here https://community.zyxel.com/en/discussion/12829/nwa210ax-slow-performance the best advice to get a good connection and encourage devices to switch to the access point with the strongest connection to them? My phone does this but my oven for example is still connected to the 2nd floor AP for some reason (likely because that’s the one it was originally connected to).

I don't know that you want to take all those tweaks, but you could experiment with taking different subsets of the advice to see what works best for you. FWIW, I'm currently running my two NWA210ax's with the 2.4GHz radios disabled entirely, because I'm now in an apartment block with a ridiculous number of conflicting 2.4 SSIDs visible, and I have no 2.4-only clients. I have one at each end of the (very long and narrow) apartment, one locked to a low 5GHz channel (something in 36-48, forget exactly) and the other locked to a high channel (149-161). Seems to work well.

 

[OJay]

Thanks for the reply. Yep I think I may make some adjustments over the next few days/weeks, It does feel a little bit like i'm making changes for the sake of it but I do like the idea of optimizing the coverage etc of the APs.

The Zyxels work fine wall-mounted. I've got them oriented that way, though not actually attached to the wall.

Good to know, I think I will probably eventually end up getting a 3rd in the name of uniformity and may end up doing this.

I don't know that you want to take all those tweaks, but you could experiment with taking different subsets of the advice to see what works best for you. FWIW, I'm currently running my two NWA210ax's with the 2.4GHz radios disabled entirely, because I'm now in an apartment block with a ridiculous number of conflicting 2.4 SSIDs visible, and I have no 2.4-only clients. I have one at each end of the (very long and narrow) apartment, one locked to a low 5GHz channel (something in 36-48, forget exactly) and the other locked to a high channel (149-161). Seems to work well.

I had actually considered turning off 2.4GHz entireley as well. or at least giving it a seperate SSID for some time and hiding that SSID to figure out if I have anything that is 2.4GHz only (I can't imagine that I do but you never know). I seem to be lucky wrt wireless interference where I am, in fact the only SSIDs that I can see are my APs and my router, but currently the houses either side of me don't have anybody living in them yet so that will change a little over time. I think I will start with doing this as well as following you in locking each at different ends of the available 5GHz spectrum.

 

[follower]

Planning home network for one and half month. Amazing. I think it takes one and half year.

 

[RacerX330]

I have two zyxel NXA210AX's one up, one down. I manually configured the channel assignments. Are you using standalone management or Nebula Cloud? I thought it was worth it to use the Nebula Cloud because the WAPs will not do roaming in standalone mode. Just remember that wifi roaming is at the discretion of the client device (although you can set steering thresholds). This means if you are upstairs and walk downstairs, phones, tablets and laptops will seemless switch the downstairs WAP from the upstairs WAP without missing a beat.

0. forgot to add, that I personally separate 2.4G and 5G into separate SSIDs, that way you have control over what device connects to what spectrum, and some 2.4G only devices have difficulty connecting to WAPs where the spectrums are combined on the same SSID.

1. ensure that each WAP is running on different channels for 2.4Ghz (channels 1, 6 or 11), and on 5GHz make sure that one runs the low channel numbers (36...) and the other one in the high channel numbers (149....) e.g. my upstairs 2.4Ghz runs on channel 1, and downstairs channel 11, 20Mhz channel width. upstairs 5Ghz runs on 36 and downstairs on 149, both run 80MHz channel widths.

I used https://lizardsystems.com/wi-fi-scanner/ to determine channel interference, and check it once a month, (not much changes around here)

2. turn on the "Allow 802.11ax/ac/n stations only" option in nebula under radio config (i don't have any legacy b/g devices and do not want those connecting to the network)

3. Turn on smart steering, optimization aggressiveness: High, threshold between -80db and -75db

4. "WLAN Rate Control Setting" both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, minimum 18Mbps (this is really optional, i just like setting it high to further ensure slow talkers get dropped)

Both of mine are lightning fast, and i can easily get well over 900mbps when i move files from the laptop to the desktop/nas. Both my Zyxels are setup for wired backhaul on a 2.5Gbit POE+ switch.

If you look at the documentation that comes with the WAPs, ceiling mount is really the best way to mount them, but putting one on a wall isn't terrible it's just not optimal. They do make a smaller WAP, the NWA110AX, the main difference is it uses 2x2 MIMO for 2.4G and 5G, instead of 2x2 (2.4G) and 4x4 for 5G in the NWA210. The price difference between them is smaller than it used to be. I believe the 110 is about $120, vs the 210 at $140.

The sticky wicket with adding a 3rd WAP in a single residential structure is channel overlap in the 5G spectrum. Since 2.4G has 3 channels that have no overlap it's generally not a problem, but 5Ghz really only has 2 channel areas (for 80MHz channel widths) unless you're going to go into the DFS range (channels 52 to 144). If I remember right you're in Europe and I don't recall if those DFS channels are open to you or not. BUT, since you have signification structure between floors, this may not be an issue, but the wi-fi scanner tool will really help.

 

[coxhaus]

The sticky wicket with adding a 3rd WAP in a single residential structure is channel overlap in the 5G spectrum. Since 2.4G has 3 channels that have no overlap it's generally not a problem, but 5Ghz really only has 2 channel areas (for 80MHz channel widths) unless you're going to go into the DFS range (channels 52 to 144). If I remember right you're in Europe and I don't recall if those DFS channels are open to you or not. BUT, since you have signification structure between floors, this may not be an issue, but the wi-fi scanner tool will really help.

I have been playing with this since I have 3 Cisco 150ax APs at my house. I tried reducing channel bandwidth to have enough for 3 APs and I did not like it for home. So, I live in a long 1 story rectangle house 3300 square feet. I made the 2 outside APs, front and back the same channels for 5GHz and turned the power down to 75%. The middle AP I used the lower 5GHz channels. It might be the other way but the 2 outside AP uses the same channel and the middle one uses the other 5GHz channel at 80MHz. This seems to work best for me right now.